Jungle Cruise Shows How Far The Rock’s Career Has Come Better Than The DCEU
Despite mixed reviews, Jungle Cruise demonstrates The Rock’s career progression better than his upcoming role as Black Adam in the DCEU can.
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The Rock’s recent Amazonian outing in Jungle Cruise actually shows how far his career has come—and it does it much better than his upcoming role in the DCEU could ever hope to. Based on Disney’s theme park attraction of the same name, Jungle Cruise stars Dwayne Johnson alongside Emily Blunt, Jack Whitehall, and Jesse Plemons. Johnson plays Frank, a steamboat skipper who is hired by Dr. Lily Houghton (Blunt) to help recover the Tears of the Moon, the flowers of a tree said to be capable of curing any illness.
Despite its popularity with audiences, Jungle Cruise was met with a mixed critical reception. Its plot may seem derivative of countless other adventure movies, but the film was still enough of a success for Disney that a sequel, Jungle Cruise 2, is already underway. This adds yet another project to The Rock’s already packed-out schedule, as well as another successful franchise to his ever-growing catalog, joining the likes of Jumanji, Red Notice, and the DCEU.
Securing a Jungle Cruise franchise is a success for Johnson in more ways than one, though. The film may have had a tepid critical response and a box office confused by a simultaneous theatrical and home streaming release, but it also highlights just how far The Rock’s career has come. It even does this far better than his other current franchise roles; particularly that of Black Adam in the upcoming DCEU film of the same name.
While Black Adam could fix The Rock’s early mistakes in his career, Jungle Cruise does one better, and clearly demonstrates how far the actor has come since making them. The most obvious way it achieves this is having his character, Frank, mirroring his first movie role—but with a far, far better performance from Johnson. In 2001’s The Mummy Returns, Johnson appeared as the Scorpion King, a role he reprised in a 2002 spin-off centered around the character. The Scorpion King, much like Jungle Cruise’s Frank, is the immortal victim of a magical curse, but he’s also two-dimensional, overly serious, and generally devoid of the screen presence that The Rock brings to Jungle Cruise.
Johnson’s growth is evident in more than just the acting glow-up of one very specific character archetype, though. Given The Rock’s history in the WWE—not to mention his impressive size and physique—Johnson understandably rose to Hollywood stardom as an action hero. Jungle Cruise gives him a chance to be something more, and it’s a chance he seizes with both of his giant hands. Earlier in his career, he appeared in family-friendly films such as The Tooth Fairy and Race to Witch Mountain, neither of which achieved much traction as family favorites. Jungle Cruise proved the opposite, though, as The Rock has the capability to fill both dramatic and comedic roles, but he can do it in a family-friendly way. Black Adam might be a big role in the DCEU, but it’ll be another action-based role, and this hardly gives Johnson a chance to show his range.
Not only does Jungle Cruise prove that The Rock has a franchise future with Disney, but it highlights exactly why he deserves his success. The former wrestler once seemed destined to star exclusively in critically panned action movies, but he’s managed to carve out a reputation as one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood. His upcoming Black Adam role might seem like the best evidence of the progress he’s made, but Jungle Cruise is the perfect example of exactly how far Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has come to earn his success.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/jungle-cruise-dwayne-johnson-movies-success-dceu-change/